Learning to Wait

There's something to be said for learning to wait for things.

Not that I'm not as impatient as the next person sometimes, but I've been gaining an even greater appreciation of waiting. Gardening has played a big part in that.



My children are part of the modern age. They want to know something, they spend a minute or two on the web, looking it up. They want to watch a show, they go to hulu.com or netflix streaming and there it is, right away, ready to watch.

But gardening takes a while. There is no quick and easy route for this one. They want strawberries, they have to plant them, and wait for the weather, and then the flowers and then the fruits. They wait months for corn and squash. They have to wait a week or two just for seeds to sprout. It's been really amazing to not only watch my children learn that some things take time, but to see them so excited when everything finally comes to fruition. Literally.

I hadn't realized it would help me slow down and enjoy things, too. There's a part of me that's always been relatively relaxed about this, but never about my food. That's changed. My herb garden has been growing for the last year or so, and every season, I add something new. It usually doesn't do well enough to really enjoy for a month or so, and even then, I may have to wait until the next year for it to reseed and really get going. I have to wait to enjoy it.


I have an almond tree growing now. In a few months it will have almonds, and I can have almonds for the first time in years. And I'm not impatiently waiting for it, I'm simply looking forward to it.

Who knew almonds were fuzzy? Not me!

Maybe that's the real change. When it comes to many things in my life now that I no longer have access to as I used to, I feel more a sense of anticipation than a sense of frustration at the delay. I feel like I've grown in that regard in the last few years. Or I'm channeling a super-zen superhero, maybe. Whatever the reason, it's nice to be able to walk out to my garden and get a giddy little thrill at small shoots popping up through the ground.

Yes, I'm actually a bit giddy with it, not exaggerating there. I guess I'm just able to enjoy the little things as well as the big, right now, and being perfectly all right with it.